Why I'll never be a gay rights advocate

[bodecea]

The main problem I have with the whole idea of gay rights doesn't really have to do with any deep-seated hatred of gays. It's twofold: I really don't see gay people selflessly going to bat for other people and creating a national furor about the plights of other minorities but themselves, and I feel like the same people who want me to be all accepting and tolerant of gay people are the same ones who effectively want people to keep their religion in the closet.

LOL...you obviously don't know much about history. Gays have been involved in the civil rights movement and in the women's rights movement. Sad to say tho, they were frequently purged out because their help was percieved as more of a taint of the movement.

I don't believe gay people have any "civil rights" complaints so much as they have complained and thrown "rights" around enough that enough people think they don't have any, but I would still support them in their political agenda if I felt like they were massively selfish hypocrites. All they care about are their issues (and please don't try to make analogies to blacks because that's no excuse) and I've heard more than a few gays who are generally bigoted towards religious people. I know some people will say, "well that's because they have been oppressed by them", but that's bullshit, because not every gay person has that testimony. Some definitely have experienced religious persecution, but there are plenty who use religion as a scapegoat because it's the "in" thing to do.

I'm sorry, but I see generally calling religious people stupid, crazy, insane whack-jobs as being as offensive as calling a gay person faggot, queer, homo, sissy, etc. The only difference is, it's fine to engage in thinly veiled religious intolerance, but even the notion of homophobia and some liberals lose their minds.

Fuck all this bullshit about acceptance, tolerance, and equality. If you want others to play nice, start with yourself.

You are sounding no different than many segregationists and sexists have over civil rights and women's rights. That is not intended as an insult, it is simply the facts after researching the civil rights and women's rights movements.

But...no one ever gets their equal civil rights by asking politely. No one.

 

[Qball]

But...no one ever gets their equal civil rights by asking politely. No one.

Are you sure? I hear people speak much more fondly about Martin Luther King and his peaceful efforts and civil disobedience and how they were instrumental to the civil rights movement than I hear about Malcolm X, whose message was 'by any means necessary". I might disagree with much of the gay political platform, but even I don't expect them to be "nice" about it. By the same token, being confrontational and closed-minded while at the same time campaigning people to be open-minded about your ideas is just makes them look like hypocrites.

 

[rdean]

But...no one ever gets their equal civil rights by asking politely. No one.

Are you sure? I hear people speak much more fondly about Martin Luther King and his peaceful efforts and civil disobedience and how they were instrumental to the civil rights movement than I hear about Malcolm X, whose message was 'by any means necessary". I might disagree with much of the gay political platform, but even I don't expect them to be "nice" about it. By the same token, being confrontational and closed-minded while at the same time campaigning people to be open-minded about your ideas is just makes them look like hypocrites.

MLK was arrested and his followers were fire hosed and shot, as was he.

They never gave up. They also never said, "Please". What they said was, "If not NOW, when?"

Politically, you never get anything unless you demand it and fight for it.
Comparing gays to incest and murder certainly isn't "polite". Sorry, I know you "tried", but the argument came up lame.

 

[Againsheila]

Not important enough to me....

I have two autistic kids, I've had breast cancer, my husband has had colon cancer. My mother and aunt died from lung cancer. we have an increasing homeless population and people who can't afford to feed themselves.....I put my efforts towards those and there isn't a whole lot of time or money left to worry about whether or not someone is gay.

 

[rightwinger]

From crazy chrismac

Prove there was ever some Golden Age of Gay Oppression where this happened. You get one chance, and if you come up with some bullshit where gays were just in the same boat as everyone else, you fail.

http://www.holocaust-trc.org/homosx.htm

In 1934, a special Gestapo (Secret State Police) division on homosexuals was set up. One of its first acts was to order the police "pink lists" from all over Germany The police had been compiling these lists of suspected homosexual men since 1900. On September 1, 1935, a harsher, amended version of Paragraph 175 of the Criminal Code, originally framed in 1871, went into effect, punishing a broad range of "lewd and lascivious" behavior between men. In 1936 Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler created a Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion: Special Office (II S), a subdepartment of Executive Department II of the Gestapo. The linking of homosexuality and abortion reflected the Nazi regimes population policies to promote a higher birthrate of its "Aryan" population. On this subject Himmler spoke in Bad Tölz on February 18, 1937, before a group of high-ranking SS officers on the dangers both homosexuality and abortion posed to the German birthrate.

Under the revised Paragraph 175 and the creation of Special Office II S, the number of prosecutions increased sharply, peaking in the years 1937-1939. Half of all convictions for homosexual activity under the Nazi regime occurred during these years. The police stepped up raids on homosexual meeting places, seized address books of arrested men to find additional suspects, and created networks of informers to compile lists of names and make arrests.

An estimated 1.2 million men were homosexuals in Germany in 1928. Between 1933-45, an estimated 100,000 men were arrested as homosexuals, and of these, some 50,000 officially defined homosexuals were sentenced. Most of these men spent time in regular prisons, and an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 of the total sentenced were incarcerated in concentration camps.

How many of these 5,000 to 15,000 "l7Sers" perished in the concentration camps will probahlii never be known. Historical research to date has been very limited. One leading schblar, Ruediger Lautmann, believes that the death rate for "l7Sers" in the camps may have been as high as sixty percent.

 

[Political Junky]

The main problem I have with the whole idea of gay rights doesn't really have to do with any deep-seated hatred of gays. It's twofold: I really don't see gay people selflessly going to bat for other people and creating a national furor about the plights of other minorities but themselves, and I feel like the same people who want me to be all accepting and tolerant of gay people are the same ones who effectively want people to keep their religion in the closet.

I don't believe gay people have any "civil rights" complaints so much as they have complained and thrown "rights" around enough that enough people think they don't have any, but I would still support them in their political agenda if I felt like they were massively selfish hypocrites. All they care about are their issues (and please don't try to make analogies to blacks because that's no excuse) and I've heard more than a few gays who are generally bigoted towards religious people. I know some people will say, "well that's because they have been oppressed by them", but that's bullshit, because not every gay person has that testimony. Some definitely have experienced religious persecution, but there are plenty who use religion as a scapegoat because it's the "in" thing to do.

I'm sorry, but I see generally calling religious people stupid, crazy, insane whack-jobs as being as offensive as calling a gay person faggot, queer, homo, sissy, etc. The only difference is, it's fine to engage in thinly veiled religious intolerance, but even the notion of homophobia and some liberals lose their minds.

Fuck all this bullshit about acceptance, tolerance, and equality. If you want others to play nice, start with yourself.

I'm sure gays will not miss a homophobe in their midst.

 

[Qball]

But...no one ever gets their equal civil rights by asking politely. No one.

Are you sure? I hear people speak much more fondly about Martin Luther King and his peaceful efforts and civil disobedience and how they were instrumental to the civil rights movement than I hear about Malcolm X, whose message was 'by any means necessary". I might disagree with much of the gay political platform, but even I don't expect them to be "nice" about it. By the same token, being confrontational and closed-minded while at the same time campaigning people to be open-minded about your ideas is just makes them look like hypocrites.

MLK was arrested and his followers were fire hosed and shot, as was he.

They never gave up. They also never said, "Please". What they said was, "If not NOW, when?"

Politically, you never get anything unless you demand it and fight for it.
Comparing gays to incest and murder certainly isn't "polite". Sorry, I know you "tried", but the argument came up lame.

MLK and other civil rights protesters weren't nice, but they weren't obstinate hypocrites, either. They didn't close themselves off to dissent. The gay community, to a big degree, has done that.

Where did I compare gays to incest and murder? More importantly, how could I compare a group of people to a sexual act and a violent crime?

 

[bodecea]

Are you sure? I hear people speak much more fondly about Martin Luther King and his peaceful efforts and civil disobedience and how they were instrumental to the civil rights movement than I hear about Malcolm X, whose message was 'by any means necessary". I might disagree with much of the gay political platform, but even I don't expect them to be "nice" about it. By the same token, being confrontational and closed-minded while at the same time campaigning people to be open-minded about your ideas is just makes them look like hypocrites.

MLK was arrested and his followers were fire hosed and shot, as was he.

They never gave up. They also never said, "Please". What they said was, "If not NOW, when?"

Politically, you never get anything unless you demand it and fight for it.
Comparing gays to incest and murder certainly isn't "polite". Sorry, I know you "tried", but the argument came up lame.

MLK and other civil rights protesters weren't nice, but they weren't obstinate hypocrites, either. They didn't close themselves off to dissent. The gay community, to a big degree, has done that.

No we have not...but for the sake of argument, show us how we have closed off dissent. Before you start, are you aware of the Log Cabin Republicans?

Where did I compare gays to incest and murder? More importantly, how could I compare a group of people to a sexual act and a violent crime?

Not you, but we are...frequently. Just the other day, Rep Gohmert on the House of Representatives floor compared us to pedophiles and necrophiles.

 

[bodecea]

I really don't see gay people selflessly going to bat for other people and creating a national furor about the plights of other minorities but themselves...

How do you know this?

Do you know for a fact that everyone who goes to bat for other minorities are all heterosexuals?

I'm relatively certain the gay community as a collective doesn't go to bat for anybody else's issues but their own.

Relatively sure? Well then...you won't have any problem proving your point. While you're at it, ruminate on these people:
Bayard Rustin
Rita Mae Brown
Steve Hamilton
Mark Bingham

Because some gay individuals can see past their own political aims doesn't let the entire gay community off the hook for being self-centered.

Hmmm. Self centered like the Civil Rights movement was self-centered? Like the women's rights movement was self-centered?


You amuse me. You think you can fool us into thinking you would ever have thought of supporting gay rights when you are simply working hard as finding any flimsy lame excuse to not support equal rights.

I suspect that there were many like you in the South during the 50s and 60s too...looking for excuses to not support MLK Jr. and the end of Segregation. Got to sooth that conscience somehow, I suppose.